p24: "[fans] are also acutely and painfully aware that those fictions do not belong to them and that someone else has the power to do things to those characters that are in direct contradiction to the fans' own cultural interests"

academy, canon, authorial intent --> the "correct" method of reading

p48: "the largely female composition of media fandom reflects a historical split within the science fiction fan community between the traditionally male-dominated literary fans and the newer, more feminine style of media fandom."

media fandom began with Star Trek

examines how texts are inevitably reinterpreted by readers; authors view this as disintegration, but the process makes the world of the text take on an independent reality

p116: "Fan criticism is the institutionalization of feminine reading practices just as the dominant mode of academic criticism is the institutionalization of masculine reading practices"-socially, not biologically determined; women's stories are devalued, so they learn to find their stories in the periphery of masculine narratives

p189 "Slash fiction represents a reaction against the construction of male sexuality on television and in pornography"

p190 "Slash breaks as well with the commodification of pornography, offering erotic images that originate in a social context of intimacy and sharing"

p191: considers only male/male slash --> first and more prevalent, although written by and for women 90%

p194: "In slash, both characters can be equally strong and equally vulnerable, equally dominant and equally submissivie, without either quality being permanently linked to their sexuality or their gender"

p205: slash is social commentary on popular constructions and restrictions on male sexuality; acts like Eve Sedgwick's Between Men, removing the barriers to same-sex desire and making explicit the idea of a continuum between friends and lovers

p234: fan music videos1. "memory palace, encapsulating a complex narrative within a smaller number of highly iconographic shots"2. or they can function like essays or fan fic; take suggestive images out of context and edit them to make the subtext more obvious (an admitted relationship or denied one--i.e., Troi and Riker, or Data and Yar)3. to tell a new story like fan fic

fandom = folk culture

qualities of fandom:1. "particular mode of reception" - fans watch with undivided attention, are both emotionally invested in and critical of the show2. interpretation and analysis methods: compare/contrast with real life, look at details for hidden meaning, extrapolate from subtext3. lobbying the producers and networks for certain plot developments and to get cancelled shows back on the airp278: "Fandom originates, at least in part, as a response to the relative powerlessness of the consumer in relation to powerful institutions of cultural production and circulation"4. "cultural production": art, fan fic, music videos, filkp279: "Once TV characters enter into a broader circulation, intrude into our living rooms, pervade the fabric of our society, they belong to their audience and not simply to the artist who originated them"5. "alternative social community"

When I arrived at my parents' house for Memorial Day weekend, I described to them the Kindle Worlds press release, and my mother initially reacted the way some non-fan bloggers and news outlets reacted--wow, fanfic writers must love it! Yeah, no, said I, that's not how they reacted.

I want to see some meta on how weird the permission culture of fanworks fandom* is compared to the rest of the Internet. I'm always discovering new things that somebody thought they needed permission for, like linking to a public website or repodding a fanfic or podficcing a fanfic posted anonymously on a kink meme. (Oh my god, just do it already, and stop asking before everyone else starts thinking they need to ask, too.) It's not just because of Disney and the larger corporate-sponsored copyright culture. It's because fanworks fandom has a female majority, and women still feel the need to ask permission to breathe. I speak from experience. In slash fandom especially, there's an idea that fandom or fanworks are feminist somehow, by resisting the dominant hegemonic paradigm thingy and repurposing male narratives to express female sexuality (except then I don't know what all the men slashers are expressing--enjoyment of slash, maybe?), and I'm sure there's some truth in that, but fandom is also composed of people -- people who brought their own cultural baggage with them. Sexism followed us right in. We're busy policing each other whenever there are no male authorities around to do it for us. (This reminds me of an essay I read somewhere about the self-defeating power dynamics of feminist organizations. Joanna Russ?) You don't see anons on 4chan asking permission to reuse someone's idea for a macro. Why? Because it's not a female space. (Also it's an anonymous space, so maybe kink meme podficcers could learn something from that.)

Not that I want to lead the charge for the as-yet non-existent anti-permission rebel forces. I need to lead the charge of aethel to her bed.

__________*Except for how it's not a monolithic thing (I hope). The parts I've seen on LiveJournal/Dreamwidth vary, and Tumblr is a whole other ball game. Maybe that's why I love Tumblr so much.

Podfic is more than just saying words aloud—it's performing them, expressing one reader's experience of the story and sharing it with the world. To find out more information on acting in podfic, check out Pod Aware on DW, LJ or Tumblr.

My contribution for today is a 15-minute podcast. It might have turned into a Teen Wolf love-fest.